By the author of The Jessica Project, http://www.geocities.com/thejessicaproject/author

 

On the Run

by Nom de Plume

© 2003

 

Part Four

 

"Good luck, Derek. You've paid your debt to society, and you're a free man. As I say to all my departing guests, don't let me see you again."

I shook the warden's hand and walked outside the prison walls, breathing free for the first time in seven years. My new shoes pinched my feet, and my new suit felt as cheap as it looked, but who cared? As I waited for my bus on a beautiful April morning, I knew I wouldn't be wearing them for long.

Seven years! I went into the big house as a callow youth of twenty-three, and I was leaving as a thirty-year old man. Still, my body was lean and limber, and by the grace of God I still had a full head of hair. Physically, I had never looked better. Mentally? One of the benefits of being incarcerated in a federal institution was unlimited access to psychiatric care.

After countless hours of analysis by a revolving cast of shrinks, I was well and truly certified as a pre-operative transsexual. Although my pleas for hormone therapy had been rejected, and to all outward appearances I was a normal man, the piece of paper in my pocket would authorize any board-certified physician in the United States to slice and dice me into a woman.

There would be a one-year waiting period while I lived as a member of the opposite sex, and it seemed unfair that the past seven years didn't count for that. God knew, that was how the boys inside had treated me. How many times had I taken it up the ass in prison? Hundreds, perhaps thousands. I had long ago forgotten what it felt like to be with a woman, and I no longer had any interest. My goal was to become one.

In truth, it wasn't prison that did it to me. It was three incredible days, seven years earlier, during my brief getaway from the police after I was caught stealing half a million dollars from my employers. Disguising myself as a woman, I was on the brink of starting a new life as a pretty girl when my past caught up with me. Down but not out, I had managed to stash the loot in a place where it could safely grow into the nest egg I would need to start my life over, once again, as Miss Victoria Ross.

* * *

The bus ride from Leavenworth to Las Vegas is not to be recommended. After sitting and sleeping in my prison-issued suit for over twenty-four hours, I looked as dreadful as I felt.

For seven long years, the key to the safe deposit box where my fortune was hiding lay buried under a small patch of grass in front of the Tropicana. I grew sick with worry as I walked down Las Vegas Boulevard, eyeing with astonishment the new mega-hotels and casinos on every corner. What if the Trop had been torn down, to make way for another new monstrosity? I held my breath as I approached the intersection. There, in the shadow of the Empire State Building and the MGM lion, was my beloved old Tropicana, serenely oblivious to the frenzy of new development around it.

After I checked in, I bought myself a tee shirt and swimming trunks. For the rest of the afternoon, I lolled around the tropical themed pool, sipping margaritas as I dreamed about the last time I drank one. I was a pretty girl, driving a red convertible, on a lunch date with a handsome man in Phoenix. I wondered what ever happened to him? I drifted off in my lounge chair, only awakening when the sun dipped behind the ersatz New York skyline across Las Vegas Boulevard.

Although I was sorely tempted to hit the buffet and gorge myself on real food for the first time in seven years, that was not the way to maintain my girlish figure.  After a bowl of soup in the coffee shop, I took a long walk, stopping at a large drugstore to purchase some essentials.  It would be hours before the pedestrian traffic on the strip thinned out enough for me to return to the grassy patch where my treasure was buried, and I killed the time by shaving off all of my body hair in my hotel bathroom.  Every night in my prison cell, I had dreamed of this moment:  the first small step in my metamorphosis from male to female.  When I was done, I filed my long fingernails into feminine shapes.  Without polish, they would not attract undue attention.

I killed a few hours in the casino, playing quarter slots until most of the other players had scooped their remaining coins into their slot buckets and drifted away. Finally, at three o'clock in the morning, I went outside and loitered on the small rectangle of lawn between the port cochere and the sidewalk.  When I was certain that there was nobody nearby, I dropped to my knees and began to probe the soil with a knife that I'd stolen from a room service cart.  Within seconds, I felt the blade strike the top of the sealed plastic container which I'd buried there that November morning, a few hours before I turned myself into the FBI.  I dropped the knife and dug furiously with my hands, hoping as I did so that I would not ruin one of my nails.  When the hole was big enough, I lifted the container out of the ground, stuffed it into a hotel laundry bag, and headed back to my room.

I bolted the door behind me and carefully shook the loose dirt off the container before I laid it on the bed.  My fingers were trembling as I pried open the lid and looked inside.  It was all there:  Brian Robbins' wallet with his identification and credit cards.  An Arizona driver's license and ATM card in the name of Victoria Ross.  And at the very bottom, a slim brass key.

* * *

You can do almost anything twenty four hours a day in Las Vegas, except shop for a complete woman's wardrobe. After a restless night, I had a modest breakfast in front of a kiosk in the hotel lobby and caught a taxi to a shopping mall a few miles from the strip. Here was where the locals shopped. If I were in search of a designer outfit to wear to a gourmet restaurant, no doubt I could have found one at any of the boutiques along the strip, but my needs were different this morning.

My cash on hand was down to three hundred dollars, and I knew I had to save enough for my final purchase as I made my way through the racks at Marshall's. Soon I was paying for a knee-length denim jumper paired with a short sleeve cotton top, an all-in-one body briefer, a slip, two pairs of pantyhose, a gold plated necklace, and clip on hoop earrings. I attracted no unusual looks from the girl at the register or the other customers in the store. This was Las Vegas.

A Payless shoe store yielded a pair of brown moccasin flats and a matching shoulder bag, and after half an hour in a large drugstore, I had all the cosmetics and other feminine necessities I would need for my transformation. Except for the most important thing. I had a little over $100 left in my wallet to pay for it.

So I walked the two miles to another strip mall, and into a wig store which advertised heavily in all the throwaway tabloids distributed up and down the strip. "Showgirls!" blared the ad copy. And in smaller print, "Chemotherapy patients. Complete privacy." When I walked into the store, my arms full of shopping bags, the woman behind the counter sized me up with weary eyes.

"Can I help you, dear?" she asked. She was wearing one of the store's offerings, a bright red Sassoon bob which looked ridiculous over her weather-beaten face.

"I need a wig, inexpensive but very natural, that I can wear to a costume party." Halloween and Mardi Gras had come and gone, but if she thought my request odd, she gave no indication. She sized me up for a second, and walked into a back room. When she returned, she had a short wig in her hands, light brown like my hair.

"If you want to try it on, put this net over your head first," she said, handing me a thin mesh skullcap. Beyond embarrassment by this point, I thanked her, tucked my hair under the net, and sat down in front of a mirror on the counter. After looking around to make sure nobody else was in the store, I tugged the wig down over my head. It was sensational. A perfect fit, the curly tresses were indistinguishable from the real thing.

"How much?" I asked her.

"Retail is $129, but I can let you have it for $89," she said.

"Sold," I said, putting the last of my bills down on the counter. I would even have enough money for a taxi back to the Tropicana. Things were falling into place perfectly.

* * *

Later that day, Victoria Ross entered the lobby of a Wells Fargo bank in downtown Las Vegas. Her languid pace, and the glow in her face, were attributable to the three orgasms I had experienced while transforming myself into her in my hotel room. After seven long years of frustration and denial, my body had responded with unrestrained joy to the wonderful sensations of wearing women's clothing once again. I ejaculated unexpectedly while I was putting on my makeup, again while I was easing my nylons up my legs, and once more when I surveyed the finished product in the full length mirror on the closet door. Seeing myself in a dress again, a pretty yarnbow in my hair to match the flowers on my top, wearing dainty shoes and stockings, had been enough to buckle my knees as my aching penis throbbed in ecstasy.

"May I help you, Ma'am?" a middle-aged man asked when I approached the mahogany rail separating the lobby from the officers' desks. When did I go from being a "Miss" to being a "Ma'am?" I wondered to myself as I looked around. The bank was just as I remembered it.

"I'd like to access my safe deposit box, please," I said in the feminine voice which I had practiced every night in prison.

"Certainly. May I see some identification?" The moment of truth! I fished the old, phony Arizona drivers license out of my purse and held my breath. But he seemed not to notice the expiration date, merely writing down my name in a logbook before he handed it back to me and asked me to follow him to the vault.

It was cool and dark, and I had to wait while he opened a waist-high door and led me into a chamber filled with row upon row of gray metal boxes. The little brass key was clutched in my trembling hands. He inserted a master key from a chain attached to his belt into one of the boxes, I inserted mine, and he slid the box back and handed it to me. He opened the door to a private booth and told me to buzz him when I was finished.

I waited until he was gone before I peered inside the box. There it was, a stack of zero coupon municipal bonds, which had been quietly earning interest for seven years and were now worth almost a million dollars, tax free. Suddenly impatient, I stuffed the bonds into my purse, along with a few thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills which I had placed in the safety deposit box along with the bonds before I surrendered empty-handed to the FBI.

I buzzed for the bank officer to return. When he did, there was a frown on his face.

"Miss Ross, we have a little problem."

I held my breath. "Problem?"

"Yes. It seems that you haven't been paid the annual rent for this box in years. In fact, our statements to your address in Phoenix have all been returned." He looked at me accusingly. "You're lucky we haven't drilled the box. We just haven't gotten around to it."

The blood returned to my face. "I'm so sorry," I told him. "I've been abroad, and I completely forgot about it. How much do I owe you?"

"It's up to $295.73 with penalties and interest," he said in a stern voice.

I pulled three hundred dollar bills out of my purse and placed them in his hand. "Keep the change," I said, spinning on my heel, a rich bitch once again.

* * *

I took a cab to the Forum Shops and treated myself to a long lunch at a nice restaurant, overlooking a bogus Italianate fountain under a vaulted ceiling painted to look like the sky. Everything in this town is artificial, just like me, I mused as I sipped on a glass of expensive Chardonnay. Two losers in gold chains and open necked shirts at the next table were trying to flirt with me, and I noticed that they were staring at my legs. I looked down and realized that I was giving them a clear shot at my panties. My male ego, extinguished by my third orgasm, watched helplessly as I crossed my legs and tugged my dress down over the hem of my slip.

It was time to get out of Las Vegas. Through my prison connections, I had learned of a little shop downtown where I could get a phony birth certificate and social security card, which would be all I'd need to reestablish Victoria Ross as a lawful member of society. Once I redeemed my municipal bonds, I knew where I was headed. Like the mythical Phoenix which rose from the ashes, that was where my self-discovery had begun, and that was where I would start my new life.

  

  

  

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